A catalogue of sculpture in the Department of ... - Warburg Institute

EAST FRIEZE OF PARTHENON. 159An elderly bearded man (No. 33), wearing a long chitonwith short sleeves and shoes, stands next to No. 32. Onhis head are traces of metallic rust. He therefore mayhave worn a metallic wreath, for which the marble at theback of his head appears to have been hollowed. Heturns his back to No. 32, and is engaged with a boy.The two figures between them support a large piece ofcloth, folded once lengthwise, and twice breadthwise. Inthis case also archaeologists have been doubtful which isthe giver and which is the receiver of the cloth; butthe action represented is not one either of giving orreceiving. From the peculiar way in which the boygrips an angle of the folded cloth between his el^ow andhis side, while his hands are otherwise occupied, the act offolding the cloth square seems to be represented. Theportion nearest to the spectator is being dropped downtill its edges are parallel with those of the lower part, sothat the two parts should be exactly doubled.The group of fi.gures just described (30-34) containsthe centre of the composition, and the interpretation ofthe frieze as a whole depends on the meaning we attach tothis group. Leaving on one side the writers referred toon p. 147, who hold that the frieze does not representthe Panathenaic festival, we find that a majority of writersdescribes No. 32 as a Priestess of Athene, giving the sacredvessels to the Arrhephori or Ersephori, and No. 33 as apriest or Archon Basileus receiving or giving the sacredpeplos of Athene. This view of Nos. 30-32 was necessarilyabandoned, when it had been perceived that theobjects held by the maidens are chairs, not baskets. Asregards Nos. 33, 34, the main arguments forinterpretingthe cloth as the peplos are, that the accounts of the processionpreserved in ancient authors show that theconveyance of the peplos of Athene was the principalfeature in it. If we look to the place assigned to this